Shenyang

I went to Shenyang Tuesday night, slept on the train, and got there about 6:30 in the morning yesterday. Not much was open at that time, so I wandered around for a while. I happened upon a very happening park which was full of people doing interesting morning exercise routines. Some people were doing aerobics, some were doing fan dancing in costumes, some were playing Chinese hackey sack, badminton, or this weird yo-yo type game, and some were just jumping up and down or hitting their backs against a tree. Who knew Chinese old people were so creative?

In this dance, there weren't enough men, so some of the old women were dressed up in men's costumes.




I ate at McDonald's for breakfast (they only have an egg burger, but it's OK), wandered around more, found the right bank to take care of visa fees for a friend, found the "foreign language bookstore" which had a total of 3 English books, and spent the rest of the morning reading at Starbucks!

These guys looked so cute gathered around a fishtank on the street on my way to the American consulate.



My afternoon at the consulate took up much more time than I expected, and was much more costly than expected, but I did get what I needed done and fed-exed to America.

I also got my trip to Wal-mart in as I went back to the station. I found some spreadable cheese, different flavors of jam than we can get here, spaghetti sauce for cheaper than we can get here, and a few other goodies. It looks a lot like an American one, but mostly stocked with the same stuff as any other larger Chinese supermarket.


And, just in time, I made it back to the train station for my 6:15 train. I got back to the university just in time to teach my 8 am class. Now to finish the work that's been piling up.


(This is the deals they have on phones inside the shop, I think.)